Just below them is Spain, on 67% with the UK, Finland and Portugal all at 66%.

While these scores are high, it shows a number of the best countries in Europe are only two thirds of the way to full equality for LGBT+ people. Meanwhile France scores only 56%, Ireland 52% and Germany 51%.

Trans rights on the frontline

ILGA-Europe reports that trans and intersex rights are the main areas which have seen progress.

The index rewards Andorra, Belgium, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, and Switzerland which have all adopted new equality laws to include trans and intersex people.

Meanwhile Iceland won points for updating legal gender recognition to allow trans people to determine their gender for themselves. Likewise, Spain won points for giving under 18s access to legal gender recognition.

However, trans rights are also under attack. Laws to recognize gender are stalled in Albania, Cyprus, Finland and Sweden. Meanwhile ILGA-Europe singles out the UK where anti-trans groups have delayed and attacked moves to update gender recognition laws.

Worse still for the UK, it lost points this year because ILGA-Europe says its ‘existing administrative and legal procedures that allow for name or gender marker change in official documents for trans people are not effective in practice’.

That puts it in an unenviable group of less progressive European countries, alongside Hungary, Azerbaijan and Serbia which lost points for the same reason.

‘The news that more governments are adopting laws that protect trans, intersex and non-binary people must be read with extreme caution.

‘The safety and wellbeing of trans communities in Europe remains precarious. [It is] only made more fragile by governments’ responses to the current pandemic, which is affecting these communities particularly hard.’

‘A perfect storm for many LGBTI people in Europe’

The pandemic is one of the major factors that could create a perfect storm for LGBT+ people.

Executive director of ILGA-Europe, Evelyne Paradis, said: ‘This is a critical time for LGBTI equality in Europe.

‘With each year passing, more and more countries, including champions of LGBTI equality, continue to fall behind in their commitments to equality for LGBTI people, while more governments take active measures to target LGBTI communities.

‘History shows that those who are vulnerable before a crisis only become more vulnerable after a crisis.

‘So we have every reason to worry that political complacency, increased repression and socio-economic hardship will create a perfect storm for many LGBTI people in Europe in the next few years.

‘Our call to put high political priority on LGBTI equality has never been more pressing.

‘The results of this year’s Rainbow Map show that equality measures are falling through the cracks in several countries, not because of lack of political and public support but because of widespread complacency about the need for LGBTI equality measures.

‘Fewer and fewer decision-makers are picking up the mantle to see important pieces of legislation through and keep political momentum, so processes are stalling or not being followed up.

‘There are reasons to be extremely worried that this situation will spread as political attention is immersed in the economic fall-out of COVID-19.’